Alaska Airlines has become the first carrier to bring SkyLights’ new Allosky Cinematic VR entertainment to North America.
The end-to-end solution will be piloted as an amenity in first class on Alaska Airlines’ Seattle-Boston and Boston-San Diego routes, enabling passengers to enjoy 2D, 3D and forward-facing 360° films on a full HD cinema screen.
“Alaska Airlines is excited to be the first airline in North America to trial virtual reality headsets as an in-flight entertainment device,” said Brett Catlin, Alaska Airlines’ managing director of guest products. “We’re thrilled to partner with innovative companies like Skylights that share our desire to enhance the guest experience.”
Passengers onboard the pilot flights will be able to access a selection of 2D and 3D films provided by SkyLights’ partners 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers and EIM.
The Allosky will also be pre-loaded with forward-facing 360° films. The short VR films, selected specifically for their suitability to the inflight environment, will cover subjects such as freediving, classical music and acrobatics.
First showcased at the APEX Expo in September 2017 and following the commercial deployment of the new solution in Europe, SkyLights is now aiming to secure deployments around the world.
“The Allosky is now ready to deploy and we are delighted to see it take flight with an airline renowned for its customer experience. We strongly believe the Allosky marks a new age in in-flight entertainment and we aim to validate this in North America with the help of Alaska’s First Class passengers,” said David Dicko, SkyLights’ CEO.
The Allosky headset is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform, with Hugo Swart, head of XR at Qualcomm Technologies Inc., commenting: “SkyLight’s product design is a great example of a VR device that is easy to use, without cables, that provides an awesome user experience to passengers who can sit back and relax with a cinema view powered by our Snapdragon solution. We look forward to more airlines providing mobile XR experiences to passengers.”
